The Evil Bible

Morality is the last bastion that fundamentalists cling to; it is the one realm that science can say nothing about. But what morals does the Bible really promote? It's been quoted to justify numerous evils, including The Crusades, The Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials, and the modern Middle East disaster. Fundamentalists such as Phelp's Westboro Baptist Church have even claimed that God struck America through 9/11 and Katrina.

Man fathered daughter's four children, court told

A court has heard detailed accounts of how a Victorian man raped his daughter over a 30-year period, fathering four of her children.

The man, now in his 60s, has pleaded guilty to 13 charges, including rape and incest.

Link:

This story doesn't say anything about the religiosity of the man in this story but I'm thinking it sounds a little like Lot's racket cause who'd hump a salt pillar.

10 questions theists have to ask themselves.

Jesus in a breath spray

I guess it's better than dry old communion wafers and you could refresh your faith quickly and easily, even if your gay or a divorcée. Yay!

Blue Q Breath Spray

Appology accepted, please don't do it again.

From:

I wanted to re-print the whole thing in case the loss of religion doesn't take.

The post before is: How I Became an Atheist - A Parable

Former Christian Apologizes for Being Such a Huge Shit Head for all Those Years, by Rechelle ~ January 28th, 2010.

1. I apologize to all the homosexuals. I am sorry that I believed in a religion that condemns you. I am sorry that for many years I thought that the bible was right in it’s condemnation of homosexuality. I am sorry that when I no longer thought the bible was right about homosexuality being a sin, I did not raise a gigantic stink about it every Sunday right in the middle of the sermon… week after week after week… until the church issued a restraining order against me and I could no longer come within a hundred feet of the sanctuary.



2. I apologize to everyone on the face of the earth that has not accepted Jesus christ as their personal savior because I believed that you were all going to hell. This includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, Environmentalists, Democrats, Movie Stars (especially Tom Cruise), Scientologists, University Professors, Physicists, Geneticists, Europeans, Women’s Studies Majors, Feminists, Millionaires, Billionaires, Hippies, Atheists, Agnostics, Astrologers, People who read their horoscopes, People who watch Bay Watch, Vegetarians, J.K Rowling, Bill Gates, All High-School Biology Teachers who teach evolution and P.E .Teachers who teach a yearly unit on sex-ed..



3. I apologize to all my former Sunday school students because I taught you that the bible was the word of god. I perpetuated a myth that the bible is a special book that should be regarded ‘much more highly than it ought’. I encouraged you to trust this book, to think this book contained sacred ideas about life and god. I made you think that the stories in the bible were intrinsically valuable and could teach you about how god works and who god is. I apologize for always referring to god as a ‘he’, thereby further anthropomorphizing a pretend deity and making you think ‘he’ was real and decidedly masculine. I apologize for teaching you to think that you were a sinner and that Jesus had to die for you when you are really just a beautiful child, perfect in every way from the minute you were born (except for when you aren’t). I apologize for telling you that Jesus conquered death and that you should put your trust in him when there is not a shred of evidence of the resurrection except for what is in the bible. I apologize for not respecting your intelligence and glazing over thorny issues and rationalizing all the bullshit that is so present at all times in ‘god’s word’. (I apologize for saying bullshit in this apology). I apologize for ever calling the bible ‘god’s word’. It isn’t ‘god’s word’. It’s just a book. There are a lot of other much better books. There are books that helped humanity move beyond misogyny and slavery and tyranny. There are books that led to scientific discoveries which led to medicine and helpful machines and made the world a better place. None of those books are in the bible. In fact, the bible helps people to justify misogyny and tyranny and slavery and the bible made church leaders fear science and so they burned scientists and doctors and smart people because what those smart people were learning was often in direct conflict with what the bible and the church taught. I apologize for not telling you that the bible and christianity are two of the main reasons that it took people so long to move from tyranny into democracy, from slavery to human rights, from cruel religious mandates to civil law. I hope someday you will figure that out for yourselves in spite of what I taught you.



4. I apologize for giving money to the church. I apologize for helping to support and pay for a building that stands empty six days a week. I apologize for giving my hard earned cash to pay an enormous utility bill on a mostly empty church building. I wish I would have given all that money to alleviate real human suffering. To purify drinking water, to build a third world hospital, to educate a child living in a slum, to improve an orphanage, to further research on diseases, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, heal the sick, reform the prisoners, but instead so much of my available funds have up until now, been sucked into a huge building that gets used once a week by wealthy over -fed Americans who get upset if the sanctuary is not adequately cooled in July.



5. I apologize for believing all sorts of mad things that are seriously messed up and incredibly hurtful to my fellow humans. Things like god causes the sins of the parents to punish the children and the grandchildren (which some christians use to explain birth defects). Things like excusing the extra creepy stuff in the bible (slavery, misogyny, genocide) based on ‘historical context’ instead of just insisting that it was wrong back then and it’s wrong now. I apologize for things like teaching the stories of big bible heroes like Abraham and Jacob and not insisting that taking a slave for a wife was a hideous violation of human rights because having a slave and then raping a slave and then fathering children with a slave is no way for anyone to EVER behave even if you are a BIBLE BIGWIG. I apologize for thinking it is okay for god to ask a person (Abraham) to murder their child to prove their faith and even thinking that if I really loved god, I too must be willing to murder my child if god asked me. I apologize for things like thinking that I had ever done anything so terrible… so horrible.. so AWFUL to warrant someone else to have to die on a cross for me. (Hey! I am far from perfect, but no one should have to be tortured and slowly murdered for my eternal salvation).



6. I apologize to my kids for being a passive aggressive christian mom. For saying things to them like ‘”if you are lying to me, god knows. He knows you are lying so you better not be lying because he knows. God knows everything. Are you lying? Because if you are lying god can tell. You can lie to your mom but you can’t lie to god. God sees everything. Are you lying? You better not be lying to me because even if I don’t know – god knows” … etc etc etc…



7. Finally, I apologize for allowing my faith to numb my response to the problems of the world. So when there was injustice, or crime, or pain, or hunger, or illness, or ignorance, or war, or greed, or tyranny, or slavery or abuse, or addiction, or pollution, or natural disasters – I believed that god was taking care of it and I didn’t really have to do anything… (except pray). Because it was god’s will… and god was using these bad things to teach me compassion… or patience… or that satan was ‘the ruler of this world’… or that we should forgive… or god was ‘perfecting’ us… or ‘disciplining’ us. (Boy! god sure disciplines the hell out of Africa doesn’t he?) I was taught that all you have to do to get into ‘heaven’ is accept Jesus as your savior. You can do good things if you want, but good deeds are not getting your ass into heaven. So why would I bother helping out? My ass was already saved!



For all these things I am truly sorry and I most humbly repent…

AND plan to make changes, repair damages and do the hokey pokey and turn myself around.

So Be It,

Rechelle

Church attendence by country

Link:

It's good to see that so many countries have just chucked the whole church thing.

Heavy metal set to be a religion?

Heavy metal fans are being urged to keep the faith - by lobbying for their love of rock to be recognised as a "religion".

Link:

Just as much fun as the Jedi bomb in the UK.

Ricky Gervais on the bible.

41 fail end of the world predictions.

44 failed & 1 ambiguous end-of-the-world
predictions between 30 and 1920 CE

Link:

The Cthulhu Mythos

Reading and Critically Reviewing the Bible in 365 days

Link:
This link is to the first post on the blog so you can read though the project from the beginning.

The Blogger:

I am an Atheist, liberal, college student, living in the bible belt. I think I may have taken "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" a bit too far

From the first post:

Rules:
I will be reading the bible and critically reviewing it during a one year period. I will do my best to be a non-biased reviewer. I will generally not be commenting on whether the events in the bible actually happened, but rather on whether the story line is cohesive and makes sense. I have found a website that divides the bible into 365 sections and I will be using this as my guide. I will be using the New International Version as I read and quote from the bible. I will do my best to make one post per day. There will be 365 entries and my final post will be on September 6, 2010.

Motivation:
I am told that reading the bible is a life changing experience that will fully and unequivocally convince me of the existence of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and maybe unicorns. I am also told, when I quote some seemingly strange passages from the bible, that I am merely taking them out of context, and that I would understand the "true" meaning if only I would read the bible in it's entirety. I also look forward to the day that when someone asks me disdainfully "well, have you actually read the bible?" my reply can be "yes, have you?".

I would encourage everyone to read along, if they are able, to make sure I'm not "reading it wrong" or something of that sort.

The end date will be September 6th, 2010.

There are other people out there doing this too: Link.

Inspired my my shiny new Kindle, I hope to read the whole Protestant Bible in 2010. I will follow the Tyndale One Year Bible plan. I followed this same course of readings in 2007. I did not take notes then; this project is an attempt to remedy that.

I am an atheist raised in a American Protest culture, so I take that view in my reading. As a consequence, my comments will be skeptical but are unlikely to significantly deviate from social and cultural context provided by Protestant America.

My interpretation style will be mostly literal. By that, I mean that I will interpret my readings literally even though I realize that most Christians do not interpret the whole Bible literally. Since each group of Christians uses different criteria for choosing which parts to interpret literally, I cannot hope to make the "right" choices, so instead I will try to apply a uniformly literal interpretation to all passages presented as historical fact.

The Tyndale One Year Bible has 365 readings which go through the whole Bible. Each day's reading includes a passage from the Old Testament, the Psalms, Proverbs, and the New Testament. Within each section, passages are in order. The translation is the New Living Translation

I will comment on each day's reading. In addition, each post will have reference links to that day's reading in the Bible Gateway version of the New Living Translation, links to the Wikipedia articles on the books that day's readings come from and annotation counts from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible (that lasted the three days until I went back to work. Manual counting is time consuming). The annotations in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible mark various acts of violence, absurdities, contradictions, etc. I do not always agree with them, but I think they are still useful to include.

I may occassionally make supplementary posts which provide further discussion of the Bible itself. However, I will avoid posts on current events. Although I may feel tempted to comment, I feel that distracts from the core purpose of this project: to read the Bible and comment upon it.

The name of this blog is a play on the idea of a One Year Bible. I would like to state, for the record, that I am always a skeptic, not just for one year. =)

Road Runner

Road Runner Funny Clip - Click here for funny video clips

This is how dogmatic and annoying theists are.

Michael Moore- The Awful Truth

Christian TV RickRolled

Original Front Hug Rap

I really don't like rap as a musical genre but I listened to this all the way through.



Mentioned on moJoe's AtheistNews podcast episode 22 Poopzilla

Link

Australia's 5 Worst Religious Child Sex Offenders

I sit back and watch the vehemence with which the public and the media attack Dennis Ferguson, one of Australia's most notorious paedophiles. While the man has served his time I can understand the anger and the worry that residents experience when the find out he has been moved to their suburb. What did he do to deserve this notoriety? Abducted and sexually assaulted 3 children of an acquaintance in 1987. In 2005 he was charged with the sexual assault of a 5 year old, but not convicted. To say he is reviled is an understatement.

Link:

Russell expresses "New Atheist" sentiments in 1959.

Who gave this New Atheist a time machine and sent him back to 1959?
All the "New" Atheists cringe at the epithet the popular press has given us. Watch Bertrand Russell and see why.

I have no use for the label "New Atheist". I am not a new atheist. I am just sick to death of people with nonsense in their heads pretending to know how to make the world a better place and telling me that I'm living a life of evil.

Pharyngula post

Sam Harris reminds Stephen Colbert that we're all atheists with respect to Poseidon.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sam Harris
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

The Dawk's choice of charity.

Non-Believers Giving Aid: a religion-free way to help disaster victims
Spurred by the horrific suffering in Haiti, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) has set up a dedicated bank account and PayPal facility to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations. This new account is in the new name of Non-Believers Giving Aid, with all of the money donated being distributed to disaster relief.

The Dawk is paying the first $10,000 of PayPal fees so more money gets to where it's needed.

Come on PayPal, how about a charity rate or even for free - it'd get more people using PayPal. You'd make the money up in no time.

Link:

Hugh Kramer from Examiner.com

Atheists and secular humanists in large numbers are reaching into their pockets to help the victims of the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th. Many of their donations are going to religious charities either because they already have boots on the ground where the help is needed or simply because they don't have knowledge of any secular charities. Such organizations do exist though and information about them is getting easier to find.

examiner.com article

Hugh runs through some good charities.

reddit.com fund raises for Haiti

reddit wanted to help. DirectRelief wanted the help. 100% of the donation is going to Haiti response programs -- no administrative BS or fundraising charged against your gift. It's all going to Haiti.

Link:

They came up with a target of $31,415... I don't know how.
It looked like this: e^(pi * i) is -1
I don't know what the hell that means.
This target was reached in 5 hours.

So they doubled it... I'll let you read the story.

The point. People want to help other people. I was careful where I placed my donations because I am sick of theists criticizing atheists over never donating. So, they weren't getting my money to show boat with again. Why would I pay them to tell me that I'm a bad person? So, I was looking for secular charities.

Addressing some misconceptions and explaining some of the basics.

8 - The Mormon Proposition trailer

http://www.mormonproposition.com

Trailer #1 to the documentary film "8: The Mormon Proposition". Obviously, it's about Proposition 8 and the banning of gay marriage in California. Even more, it's about the Mormons that dumped millions of dollars into taking away peoples' rights. We just submitted to Sundance and tons of other festivals. Visit the website for updates!

Haitian ambassador, Raymond Joseph, discusses Pat Robertson's outburst

Helping the Haitians without subsidising proselytizing.

Hearing about the Haitian earthquake I obviously wanted to help. But how can I help without giving money to a church group who are going to use half of it to proselytize or only help people who are members of their religion.

If I don't know that a group is just gonna go and do this work and help people I'm not interested in donating to them. Offering spiritual help is roughly equivalent to offering no help at all. It makes theists feel better but it does nothing.

I particularly did not want my money going anywhere near this sort of attitude:


So, I looked around and came up with three charities that I felt comfortable with. I'm not saying that this was an exhaustive search and this is definitely not an exhaustive list.

Unicef, Oxfam and The Red Cross all seem to be neutral towards religion. I went with Oxfam because their online donation form was easiest. If one of them had have taken PayPal I'd have gone with them cause it would have been that much easier.

Special Investigation - Evolution

The Thinking Atheist's Ad

Wow!

Hell Pizzas come to Australia

Someone calls their pizza shop Hell Pizza and the church gets all upset. Is this their idea of doing good works in the world. If this is how you please your god, I want no part of it.

I got a comment on there. :)

Link:

Ireland's anti-blasphemy laws come in. Atheist Ireland reacts with some quotes.

25 blasphemous quotes that should get up the noses of Ireland's theists. Yay!

Link:

"97% of schools are happy with school chaplains." Really?

Lies, damned lies and statistics!

97% of respondents is not 97% of schools. I wish the schools had been a bit more diligent in replying so a real figure could have been arrived at.

A.C. Grayling on "Teach the Controversy"

Philosopher A.C. Grayling explains why "Teaching the Controversy" isn't a good approach to science education, whether it's regarding Evolution, Astronomy or Medicine.

Keep YouTube uncensored.

Watch the video to learn about the problem.
Sign the petition.
Comment on the help page.
(Links in the description.)

reddit.com Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens answers questions from reddit.com users.